Dmitry Medvedev Had a Working Meeting with Pavel Livinskiy, Rosseti's CEO

28.06.2019

The Head of Rosseti PJSC informed the Chairman of the Government on the Company's operational results of 2018 and the current activities.

From the transcript:

Dmitry Medvedev: Pavel Anatolyevich, you are heading Rosseti, our large company. More than 200 thousand people are employed in your company. You are responsible for the energy safety of the whole country.

What are the operational results of the public joint-stock company in 2018? What are your successes? In 2019 (a significant part of the year has already passed), what major investment projects are you implementing? How will they help the economy and ordinary people, our countrymen?

Pavel Livinskiy: Dmitry Anatolyevich, I am going to report on our current activities.

At present, winterization work has begun to prepare for the coming 2019–2020 autumn-winter period. We have to clear 150 thousand hectares of overhead lines, repair 170 thousand km of lines, almost 8 thousand transformers and 40 thousand transformer substations across the country.

As for the results of work in 2018, I want to note that our revenue exceeded 1 trillion rubles. A huge figure, of course. Profit amounted to 125 billion rubles in 2018. This is also a record value for us. According to the results of the first quarter of 2019, the profit is 23% more than in the same period last year.

Based on such indicators, we offered the Government (and the Government supported us) to pay 5 billion rubles as interim dividends. For the grid sector is the maximum rate. Influenced by these drivers, the value of ordinary shares in the market exceeded the historical maximum and amounted to 1.5 rubles in June.

It is important to note that our task is to show the investment community our work on improving efficiency and performance indicators, while strictly following social responsibility in terms of tariff policy, accessibility and reliability of the grid infrastructure.

As for investment projects, in 2018 we completed the BRELL i.e. the ring that connects the northwestern and central power systems of the country bypassing the Baltic countries. Full energy independence is ensured and, if necessary, we are ready to operate the power system independently. We have connected the central part of the Yakutsk energy system to the unified federal power grid.

A large number of investment projects, such as the Port substation in the south of Russia and other objects, are associated with ensuring reliability. This year, activities are being taken to ensure the reliability of the energy of the North Caucasus, the Kuban energy system. I want to note that the work on the Kaliningrad energy system has been fully completed. On the Kaliningrad energy system, we conducted relevant activities and reported to you at a government commission. And other construction projects, including those that are part of the implementation of a integrated plan for the development of trunk infrastructure. Most of them are concentrated in Siberia, in the Far East. Everything will be done on time and appropriate funding will be provided.

Dmitry Medvedev: Last September, we held a meeting on the fate of our sector as a whole, the development of the electric power industry, and the grid economy. I gave a number of orders. We were at your facility, looked at how modern approaches were being introduced into our grid economy. Is everything done, is everything all right?

Pavel Livinskiy: Thank you very much, for your having supported our legislative initiatives. At the moment, their implementation is completed. The law on intellectual accounting was adopted at the end of 2018. For us, this is a very serious move within the framework of the concept of digital transformation approved by the Board of Directors at the end of last year under the chairmanship of the Minister of Energy, Alexander Valentinovich Novak. This is, of course, a new level in electricity transmission accounting systems and relations with end-users; this can provide them with new services including mobile applications.

Legislative initiatives are associated with the improvement of preferential technical connection and are aimed at improving the efficiency of our investment programs. They are associated with the differentiation of tariffs for the trunk complex in order to take into account the fair distribution of cross-subsidies within the framework of tariff regulation. Network reserve capacity to open closed nourishment centers “de jure” And, of course, long-term tariffs, so that we keep the savings from all the activities and can send money to improve modern infrastructure and additional dividend payments. All of them were approved by the Government. They were publicly discussed, including at the panels of the State Duma, the Council of Federation.

Dmitry Anatolyevich, please allow me to address you with a request. I ask you to order to speed up the release of these regulations and legislative initiatives, their submission to the Federal Assembly so that they are approved in the current year. They are vital for us because we can stop the growing wear of fixed assets without increasing final tariffs for consumers. Despite confident performance and financial indicators, the record profit, the depreciation of fixed assets, as of June of this year, takes place, nevertheless, and 76% of our assets are beyond their standard service life.

Dmitry Medvedev: Of course, this needs to be addressed. I will instruct to quickly release all the documents and regulations that were prepared and that they should be submitted for signature. Moreover, where it comes to legislative initiatives that we agreed upon last year, - so that they too, of course, would have be executed as soon as possible.